What's God Got to Do with It?: Robert Ingersoll on Free Thought, Honest Talk and the Separation of Church and State - Softcover

Ingersoll, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1586420968 ISBN 13: 9781586420963

Publisher: Steerforth, 2005

Synopsis

Robert Ingersoll (1833—1899) is one of the great lost figures in United States history, all but forgotten at just the time America needs him most. An outspoken and unapologetic agnostic, fervent champion of the separation of church and state, and tireless advocate of the rights of women and African Americans, he drew enormous audiences in the late nineteenth century with his lectures on “freethought.” His admirers included Mark Twain and Thomas A. Edison, who said Ingersoll had “all the attributes of a perfect man” and went so far as to make an early recording of Ingersoll’s voice.

The publication of What’s God Got to Do with It? will return Robert Ingersoll and his ideas to American political discourse. Edited and with a biographical introduction by Pulitzer Prize winner Tim Page, this new popular collection of Ingersoll’s thought – distilled from the twelve-volume set of his works, his copious letters, and various newspaper interviews – promises to put Ingersoll back where he belongs, in the forefront of independent American thought.

About this title

About the Author

Tim Page is the Pulitzer Prize—winning chief music critic for the Washington Post. He is the author of Dawn Powell: A Biography and editor of The Diaries of Dawn Powell (Steerforth Press, 1995) and Selected Letters of Dawn Powell.

From The Washington Post

Robert Ingersoll belongs to that group of popular 19th-century lecturers who have faded from public consciousness because they failed to leave behind a written masterpiece. But Tim Page, The Washington Post's music critic and the editor of What's God Got To Do With It? Robert Ingersoll on Free Thought, Honest Talk & the Separation of Church and State (Steerforth; paperback, $10), claims, "He does not deserve his present obscurity," and the well-chosen nuggets here put him right back on center stage.

Born in upstate New York in 1833 to a Congregational minister, Ingersoll was raised in a house of fiery fundamentalism, which he abandoned as soon as possible. But he retained his intimate knowledge of the Bible and theology and used it strategically for the rest of his life to slash away at what he considered the pernicious superstitions of religion.

Commemorating the centennial of the Declaration of Independence, he told his audience: "In 1776 our fathers endeavored to retire the gods from politics. . . . It was a notice to all churches and priests that thereafter mankind would govern and protect themselves. Politically it tore down every altar and denied the authority of every 'sacred book,' and appealed from the Providence of God to the Providence of Man." As Page acknowledges, "Even 130 years later, one cannot imagine any traditional politician speaking such words and remaining in the game for very long." Indeed, Ingersoll, whom Page calls "our apostle of heterodoxy," left a promising political career (as a Republican!) and "spent the last quarter century of his life as a peripatetic, Socratic gadfly, stinging fundamentalist American wherever and whenever he could."

In this collection of short excerpts from his speeches, interviews and newspaper articles, the patron saint of free thought celebrates human reason and decries the influence of blind faith. Opponents of the Kansas Board of Education, federal funding for church social programs and faith-based restrictions on medical research will find here the inspiration to keep fighting.

The Radicalism of Robert Ingersoll
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Steerforth
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1586420968
• ISBN 13: 9781586420963
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144
• Editor: Page Tim